Brubaker (1980)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Stuart Rosenberg

Writers:

Joe Hyams (book)
Thomas O. Murton (book)

Release Date:

20 June 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

The most wanted man in Wakefield prison is the warden!

Plot:

The new warden of a small prison farm in Arkansas tries to clean it up of corruption after initially posing as an inmate.

Plot Keywords:

Corruption | Prison | Abuse | Prison Farm | Murder

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win

Cast

Robert Redford	...	Henry Brubaker
Yaphet Kotto	...	Richard 'Dickie' Coombes
Jane Alexander	...	Lillian Gray
Murray Hamilton	...	John Deach
David Keith	...	Larry Lee Bullen
Morgan Freeman	...	Walter
Matt Clark	...	Roy Purcell
Tim McIntire	...	Huey Rauch
Richard Ward	...	Abraham Cook
Jon Van Ness	...	Zaranska
M. Emmet Walsh	...	C.P. Woodward
Albert Salmi	...	Rory Poke
Linda Haynes	...	Carol
Everett McGill	...	Eddie Caldwell
Val Avery	...	Wendel

Runtime:

132 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Singapore:NC-16 | Canada:14+ (Ontario) | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | Norway:18 (1980) | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Columbus, Ohio, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Nicolas Cage has a cameo role in the film, making it the first film he ever appeared in.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: In a restaurant scene, a Conn's Potato Chip sales display can be seen. Conn's are only made and sold in Ohio, not Arkansas.

Quotes:

C.P. Woodward: I'm not in the construction business for my health.
Henry Brubaker: Or anybody else's, it seems.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Teen-Age Crime Wave (#6.22)" (1994)

Get sent to jail, and you wonder whether this could happen.

Robert Redford plays another dignified character, this time as new warden Henry Brubaker posing as an inmate in a corrupt prison to understand the deplorable conditions there. As is the case with any prison-related film, we get to see some really ugly things here. Maybe "Brubaker" goes a little overboard in portraying its main character as a saint, but considering that the main point is to show the inhumanity of this country's penal system (which apparently hasn't changed much since this movie came out), they do a good job. I'd say that it's another movie that, if nothing else, deserves kudos for disproving the "Disney-ized" version of the world that we often get shown. A very good movie.